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State Overviews Texas Regional Overviews Big Bend Country Panhandle Plains Hill Country Prairies and Lakes Piney Woods Gulf Coast South Texas Plains Topical Overviews Biking Birding Boating Camping Fishing Golfing Hiking National Parks Off-Road Driving Scenic Drives Additional Info Festivals and Events Texas Almanac 
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South Plains - Texas Overview
The South Texas Plains are home to the Rio Grande Valley, one of the great birding centers of the United States. Why? It's situated on that very border between Mexico and the United States and two countries' worth of species mingle here. You will also find that trails meant for birders work very nicely for hikers. Other trails work better for bikers. San Antonio is home to the exciting Government Canyon, for example. Laredo is home to Rock Canyon, a favorite with off-roaders. South Texas’s fine mixture of natural landscape and historical sites also make it a terrific place to take a more typical drive.
On the borderlands between Hill Country and South Texas Plains as it is, San Antonio is a little of both, or, at least, has access to both. Its own rugged Government Canyon is a brutal canyon-scape of ups and downs, if it also borders more casually rolling trails. Laredo is a different kind of borderland, though, the border between the United States and Mexico. This is all unapologetic cacti and mesquite, Texas brush country at its purest. Bikers enjoy, bikers beware. No one likes a spine in their tire.
San Antonio, near the Hill Country as it is, has more lakes to its name than anywhere else in the region, and they are but two, each with only one (if particularly well equipped) marina to their name. For an international experience (if you're fishing while you're boating, you'll need licenses from two countries), check out the Falcon Reservoir near the Rio Grande Valley. In contrast to some other South Texas lakes, at that, it is over 80,000 acres large.
San Antonio is home to a good number of classy RV parks and resorts and the South Texas Plains in general are happy to cater to RV riders. Campgrounds are also here in plentiful numbers and both have enough palm trees to make you think you're in Florida . . . only these palm trees are wholly native to Texas.
Lakes are simply not very common in these borderlands and other than the occasional red drum, the species fall into the range of bass, catfish, crappie, and sunfish. However, the sports fishing focus is actually on the catfish, rather than its more glamorous cousin, which is itself worth notice. Laredo is one of those excellent catfish fishing spots.
San Antonio not only has plenty of courses, but some of them have achieved a certain national respect. The Palmer Course at La Cantera, designed by the incomparable golfer Arnold Palmer, is considered one of America's best. The Quarry Golf Club is partly situated in a rock quarry that happens to be over a hundred years old. And San Antonio has one more famous course, the Golf Club of Texas . . . this one being a Lee Trevino signature course. The Rio Grande Valley may not have so many famous golfers designing its courses, but borderland golfing tends toward excellent. The best known of these courses are El Diablo and El Angel in Rancho Viejo Country Club, but many courses offer not only entertaining golfing, but great view of the valley, and even Mexico.
San Antonio is again between two worlds, the border plains of the south and the Hill Country to the north. Some of its hikes wander through maple, other through more deserty areas, rocks and ridges. The birding and wildlife refuge trails of the Rio Grande Valley are just as useful to the hiker as to the hard-core birder. These trails could hardly be more scenic and sometimes wind for miles.
San Antonio also has the San Antonio Missions Trail, an urban scenic drive that makes stop offs at four very historic missions, including the Alamo. The Rio Grande Valley's patches of wild sub-tropical foilage, beasts, and birds can be wound through. Indeed, Rio Grande Valley State Park and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge are driveable, with all their exotic trees and animals found so rarely in the United States. |
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